Shion no Ou

[Kaoru Chujo]

Originally Posted by Woland

I was very happy when I read about Kawasumi Ayako for the lead female character... but after that I thought that Shion...

Spoiler for for the original manga:

...well she can't speak

Lol. I've read part of the manga, but I didn't think of that.

Spoiler for manga:

I guess this means (1) that she will come to speak eventually (as if we didn't suspect that anyway), and (2) Kawasumi Ayako will have a light schedule for the first episodes.

[FireChick]

I'm kinda think that Kawasumi Ayako's voice should speak for Shion in her thoughts. Ya know?

[rei_lied]

wow! all of my favorite seiyuu's are in this series! can't wait for it. It's tomorrow right?

[changeup]

No, it is not on the first week. I believe it starts next week.

Originally Posted by rei_lied

wow! all of my favorite seiyuu's are in this series! can't wait for it. It's tomorrow right?

[FireChick]

And guess what? Kyouya from Ouran (his seiyuu, actually) is in it too!

[andromeda0201]

I'm really looking forward to this anime as it seems like a Hikaru no Go with a thriller mystery case inserted.....
and of course, who can overlook Ayako Kawasumi and Romi Paku!
Has the number of episodes been announced yet?

[S_K]

This has a really nice cast, I especially like Romi Paku after she voiced Ed from FMA. I also can't forget Ayako kawasumi either.
Looking forward to this series, hope someone can sub this

[kiseki_gurl]

Originally Posted by Inujun

I'm really looking forward to this anime as it seems like a Hikaru no Go with a thriller mystery case inserted.....
and of course, who can overlook Ayako Kawasumi and Romi Paku!
Has the number of episodes been announced yet?

I haven't seen any official number but I read somewhere that there's going to be 11.

Originally Posted by S_K

This has a really nice cast, I especially like Romi Paku after she voiced Ed from FMA. I also can't forget Ayako kawasumi either.
Looking forward to this series, hope someone can sub this

I hope someone can sub this too. Unfortunately, it's going to be a total pain in the ass since the subbers would have to have good knowledge of shougi. I remembered that the scanlators would explain every single move at the end of each chapter but I'm not sure how many groups would be going to go through that. Especially since most people forgot that this show exists .

[andromeda0201]

ahhh...only 11? I wonder how much the story can go from there, looks like it will be hard to get proper character development =(

[Fimbulvetr]

Originally Posted by kiseki_gurl

I haven't seen any official number but I read somewhere that there's going to be 11.

I see air dates for 12 eps on syoboi and the last isn't labeled as end (yet), so I don't really understand where that 11 came from.

[kiseki_gurl]

Originally Posted by Fimbulvetr

I see air dates for 12 eps on syoboi and the last isn't labeled as end (yet), so I don't really understand where that 11 came from.

Some blog had it. I can't remember which.

P.S: Good to know. I just hope the series is not too long considering there isn't a lot of volumes.

[myopius]

I'd figured it could only be one season, comfortably. With 5 volumes it seems like they could pull off two seasons, but then they'd have to wrap it up with some sort of original ending. I'm someone who really dislikes that kind of thing, so I figure that if they only need material for 12 episodes, they're better equipped to conclude it without inventing original material.

The art and the storyline and the things I've heard discussed make me psyched for this. o.o

[White Manju Bun]

Originally Posted by Kaoru Chujo

The cast has been announced. Hang onto your hats:

Kawasumi Ayako @ Yasuoka Shion
Paku, Romi @ Saitō Ayumi
Mizuno, Risa (Lia de Beaumont in Chevalier,etc.) @ Nikaidō Saori

Oh sweet! I was debating about watching this but since Paku Romi is in it, Ill def give it a try! And Kyouya

Hmmm 11 epis, well that should cover 5 vols.

[serenade_beta]

It seems the RAW is out.

[monir]

This is one of those show that I need to understand the dialogue to enjoy. Guess I'll need to wait until some kind folks decide to sub it. Screens for episode 1:

[serenade_beta]

For me, the dialogue was rather easy to understand, but... well... I don't play shogi at all... Haha... That's my main problem.

Spoiler for ep1 thoughts:

Not the most amazing, but still pretty interesting.

The opening and ending themes were both quite plain and did not stand out much.

Shion gets like 2-3 lines in the whole episode.

The murderer- That's him? Not much mystery there, he revealed himself. Well, if that is the guy. He IS at least a stalker...

The blue-hair is actually a guy/bishonen. I wondered why that "girl" looked so masculine and voila...

Well, I understood that the decisive move seemed to be narikei taking out the fuhyo and got access to the king. (Well, with the little bit of knowledge I have of this game)

[kiseki_gurl]

I really need subs for this too. Luckily, my craptastic Japanese combined with my knowledge from the manga makes this understandable but it's gonna be hard once they go past those 9 scanlated chapters. If a fansubing group with decent shougi knowledge subs this I will thank the gods .

Overall, the episode was very good. As expected of course. Most of the stuff was the same except for a couple of things:

Spoiler for Manga VS Anime events:

-The introduction was different. No police, no foster parents, no Shion standing in front of everyone in a blood-soaked room in the anime. The anime added a drill for no reason either.
-With Shion's very first match where she powned that one nameless character, the nameless character thought she heard Shion speak. Obviously, this is important because you should have figured out by now that Shion lost her voice.
-In the manga, you find that Ayumi is a TRAP (man) when he changes in the bathroom. His mentor didn't rip off his clothes like that .
-Shion's instructional match wasn't shown. It wasn't super important but it did show Shion getting pissed at her opponent just from first glance. So yeah, that's rather important. Of course, we could always see this later.
-The stalker aspect is much more clearly played in the anime rather than the manga. There was no room with Shion's pictures everywhere, we didn't see anything from the stalker's POV, and most importantly the stalker never actually touched Shion. Ayumi just told the stalker to stop in the manga and the stalker dude left. Oh and Shion was walking home from her instructional match in the manga.
-I don't think there were as many instances of murder flashbacks in the manga as there were in this episode. But that's just me.

The animation disappointed me a little when compared with gorgeous manga artwork but it's passable. The OP sucks but I thought the ED wasn't that bad. BGM is okay at the moment.

So yeah I'm glad that my most anticipated anime of fall has come. And yeah it's my favorite anime of the fall at the moment.

And on another note, I will do my best to blog this. Just because it's probably gonna be forgotten and I wanna pimp this show out.

Edit: Here's the link for my blog entry on the first episode with a detailed summary and my thoughts.

[SinsI]

I actually find most of the artwork in the anime to be superior to the manga (especially Shion's step-mother - she's so much more beautiful!) with the only exception being Shion herself.

[kiseki_gurl]

^ Meh. I found the anime artwork inconsistent at times but that's just me.

[flick]

This is one anime that I *have* been anticipating for the new season. Have only briefly viewed the first episode, but am wondering at some of the seiyuu voices - for some reason I thought Romi Paku would be the voice of the lady in the sailor fuku. Nevertheless, will watch the episode in full and come back again